Habitat for Humanity Build-A-Thon Underway

DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM) – It’s Build-A-Thon week for Dallas Habitat for Humanity and that means an intense week of home-building for volunteers in the area.

The South Dallas neighborhood of Bonton is the beneficiary of this year’s build-a-thon.

DIY host Steve Thomas will join volunteers with Dallas Habitat, along with AmeriCorps National and VISTA members. In all, 11 homes will be built in the Bonton neighborhood.

In addition to helping low-income families realize the dream of homeownership, area leaders are hoping the revitalization in Bonton will help advance the City of Dallas GrowSouth plan.

“Dallas does things big and they have got a commitment to invest in neighborhoods,” explained Peter Rumsey, the director of National Service programs for Habitat. “The Bonton neighborhood we are in today, Dallas has provided some significant investment and partnership with the community to really lift up the families, lift up the neighborhood and not only provide a home for that single family but also to lift the larger community.”

The homes being built along Silkwood Street aren’t the average. All of the homes will meet Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) standards and six of the 11 being constructed will be include an additional ‘green’ component — high-performance, foam core Structural Insulated Panels (SIP) between the wood sheathing.

“What we do is put a two-by-four down around the perimeter of the slab and then there’s a little groove in the bottom of the panel and the panel just slides down over the two-by-four and then each panel is successively linked to the next one,” Director of Construction Mike Haigh detailed.

Dallas Habitat is Dallas’ largest green builder and to date has constructed more than 90-percent of all the LEED-certified single-family homes in the city.

“We’re all about affordable housing. It’s not just making housing that’s affordable to buy, but it’s also housing that’s affordable to operate and maintain,” Haigh said.

All of the Bonton homes constructed during the build-a-thon will have construction and finish work completed so owners can move in by August.